When the teaser trailer for director Catherine Hardwicke's "Red Riding Hood" debuted earlier this week, the comparisons to her previous box office blockbuster, "Twilight," flew faster than a vampire hunting Bella's blood. At first blush, these comparisons seemed unoriginal and a silly bit of pandering to "Twilight"'s rabid fanbase. But then we watched the trailer, and it's pretty hard to ignore the similarities. Thematically, "Red Riding Hood" relies on similar elements: a love triangle, supernatural occurrences and grisly murders, just to name a few. But that's the purview of the screenwriter. What's all Catherine is the teaser's visual elements, and here, even more so than plot, this film reeks of "Twilight." So much so, in fact, that we took screengrabs from both films for a side-by-side comparison.
For someone who grew up in Texas, Catherine has an intense fascination with the forest—ethereal, mist-laden ones, in particular. A woodsy setting is a favored location for her characters to bare their souls. The better if her heroine shares revelations with her sweetheart while facing away from him. Who but Catherine's couples have conversations while NOT FACING EACH OTHER?
Catherine also has a thing for fire and ice (way before the Robert Frost poem was used in "Eclipse"). Catherine's star-crossed lovers in both "Twilight" and "Red Riding Hood" share intimate moments in the snow. Nothing screams romance more than Popsicle toes, right? In hindsight, I really have no idea why snow was featured in Bella's vampire venom-induced hallucination, but I guess that's why it was a hallucination, huh?
Thankfully, her couples always have a toasty fire to warm up next to after their snowy shenanigans. Not only do flames figure into both films, but so does dancing around the flames. However, "Red Riding Hood" boasts a dance scene in the more traditional sense while "Twilight"'s vamps excitedly prance around a James-fueled flame. So I guess there's a difference for you.
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